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Good, safe work at J.H. Campbell outage brings acclaim to trades

Date Posted: June 5 2009

PORT SHELDON TWP. - Another outage, another collection of kudos for the men and women in the building trades who made repairs to J.H. Campbell Unit 2 at Consumers Energy's J.H. Campbell Generating Complex in Ottawa County.

"The work was good, really good," said Bob Griffith project manager for prime contractor Babcock and Wilcox, as the outage was winding down. "The weld rate has been phenomenal, and we're going to be finished ahead of schedule. These people really stepped up to the plate."

A building trades crew of primarily boilermakers, working day and night shifts, began work at the plant last November, completing tasks that could be accomplished before the Feb. 6 boiler shutdown. Before it came back online May 7, the trades worked on massive tube repair and replacement of side-wall panels, inlets and outlets, super-heat pendants and the ash hopper, among other tasks.

Griffith said tube repair and replacement were the primary task, but the entire $55 million maintenance outage was aimed at returning the 44-year-old boiler to "run reliably, like it should."

Consumers Energy vice president of generation construction Jim Pomaranski spotlighted the work at the Campbell plant when he talked to the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council Legislative Conference in early April.

With the outage 75 percent complete, he said there were 5,400 welds performed during the repair and maintenance of Campbell Unit 2. "The weld rejection rate has been 1.6 percent," Pomaranski said, "and 3-5 percent is considered world class. Nice work, boilermakers."

More importantly, he said the project had zero recordable injuries. "It goes to show you that a safe job is a productive job," he said. (The outage ended with one recordable injury, a twisted ankle).

Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council President Patrick "Shorty" Gleason told Pomaranski and delegates at the conference that "that kind of safety record didn't just happen. It was driven by the owner."

Gleason related that at a meeting for the planning work at the Campbell plant, Consumers Energy Vice President Jim Coddington asked about the schedule for construction. "Is this timeline going to be safe for the building trades? Twenty years from now, when we look back at this, we won't remember that we were a month late, but we will remember it if results in a worker's death or serious injury."

Gleason continued: "When we get a commitment like that, we really appreciate it. That's our people you're protecting."

The 1,440-megawatt Campbell Complex is located on a 2,000-acre site along the Lake Michigan shoreline near West Olive, Mich. Campbell Unit 1 first began providing electricity in 1962.

The Campbell generating complex consists of three separate coal-fired plants: the 260-megawatt Unit 1, 360-megawatt Unit 2 and the 820-megawatt Unit 3 plant, which includes the largest coal-fueled unit in the company's fleet.

BOILERMAKERS Local 169 members perform work on the reheat elements of the Unit 2 boiler during an outage at Consumers Energy's J.H. Campbell Generating Complex. Photo courtesy Babcock & Wilcox
WELDER Tom O'Haire of Plumbers, Pipe Fitters and Service Trades Local 174 completes a weld on soot blower air piping at the J.H. Campbell plant. Photo by Dennis McKee, Consumers Energy